Killerbunny wrote:QR_BBPOST I'm with you Jan. When I used to do avian path it was so difficult to explain to the owners that yes X,Y or z killed the birds but the problem was management. The oldtime Gamekeepers didn't want to hear that!
She needs to rethink her whole system - in fact this reminds me of the issue with a lady on PSO who kept getting cocci but we couldn't make her understand. Those poor, poor birds. Let's just hope nothing ever leaves there!
Robin's quite beside herself, she had the best of intentions and the "poultry bug" that we've all caught, but I think her enthusiasm got ahead of her. Quite like that lady on PSO, I remember her...various poultry of various ages from various places kept together in a damp cellar was her problem if I recall correctly: she'd have problems with a batch and then buy more but got upset with us when we told her to stop doing that until birds stopped getting sick and dying...Kind of the same thing here I think, except this woman just got ahead of herself with hatching loads of eggs before she was sure her adult and juvenile stock were healthy and had enough room, etc.. Partly my own fault too, I think, because I basically taught her how to get good hatches out of her still air incubator, I've been kind of mentoring her since last year, but was a distant presence as opposed to someone who visited and pointed out problems. I'm not great at social stuff, and I was happy to provide text advice and stay away. Maybe if I'd had a personal look at her setup or been more forceful saying cayenne pepper won't keep pathogens away, she might have avoided this. I doubt it, but maybe. I mean, I prefer all-natural in my birds myself whenever possible, but I have first-hand experience that if it's absolutely safe to ingest in almost any quantity, it will NOT keep creepy crawlies away. Creepy crawlies need POISON that kills them, and often the safer alternative IS the chemical one. E.G. Walnut extract will kill roundworms...but it's much more likely to cause illness and death in your birds than say Piperizine. If you dose wrong with walnut, your chicken will die a not very nice death. But at least it will be worm-free. just an example. I've used cayenne for years to try and prevent Blackhead. Doesn't work. Used in quantity, it might save one bird in ten, which is a dismal amount. And after Robin's experience with all those bugs in her birds, I think it's safe to say hot pepper won't treat Myco s. or roundworms or e. coli, either. At least not in the one bird that was sent for testing, which is admittedly too small a sample :)
I also have to wonder about her use of garlic...I know it's anti microbial, but used regularly can cause a nasty sort of anemia that will lower immunity, and I know she used it twice weekly in their water and daily after she started seeing illness. No mention was made in the necropsy report, it was all about bugs and worms (negative for salmonella, things like that) I would like to see some real, credible research on the use of things like garlic, oregano, thyme, turmeric, etc. etc.
I feel horribly for her and her birds, but this stuff fascinates me and I'd like to see more research being done. If I had a poultry science program near me, I'd be all over that like stink on
.
WLLady wrote:QR_BBPOST Wow. Glad that its "labelled" now but yeah asp is almost impossible to treat!! I have found a compound called fungizone will kill it but doubtful it can be gotten in canada (we used to be able to get it in the usa eons ago). But the treatment has a tendancy to be as bad as the infection so the birds dont recover well. Sigh.
Yep....thats a start over scenario-at least for me. I would wonder if she has other animals that might be carrying the roundworms...we all get the with free rangers or if mice get in but usually not huge infestations and not in birds that havent been out....
I am not going to look up fungizone, nor recommend she do it either. Just in case she CAN source it, because I know she'd try it and I think the one poor little turkey has been through enough. Been through enough months ago now, and almost three weeks I think since it started major med treatment including superbooster which is my go-to for sudden illness. I have to draw the line with my help somewhere, and really as soon as she said Myco AND mould, my line was drawn. I have a three day rule here. No noticeable improvement in three days in isolation with a treatment, and he or she meets the axe, and it's been a hard lesson to learn, but since I've dealt with chronic poultry diseases of my own it's been a necessary one. As it is, I fear if the remaining poult lives and recovers, I fear it's lifespan will be abnormally shortened because of the stress on it's system from illness AND from treatment. Some organ is going to fail when it's 3 or 4 years old, and she's going to go through all this again with a bird that she's then twice as attached to. And if the adults prove to be the source of the Myco at least, she's going to have loads of heartache in any case
whether it be hatchability, morbidity or mortality.
As for me, I'm glad I haven't visited nor gave in when she begged me to necropsy the last two turkeys that died. I mean, I wish I had, because I was very curious what I would see/find, but if I had given something to my own birds I never would have forgiven myself. I actually recommended to her, as diplomatically as I could, that she burn her coops to the ground. With gasoline.